The cosmological view

The concept of “primary cause” contains an internal contradiction as a concept: if the conceptualizer perceives what a primary cause is, then the concept of “primary cause” is part of the other things that the conceptualizer can conceptualize. In other words, the cause is no longer primary and in fact it turns out that the conceptualizer has invented a sentence that makes no sense.
So why do such a thing? Simply, just as there are charlatans who talk about heaven and hell as if they were the managers of the personnel department there. So the conceptualizer of this concept is a charlatan who deceives himself and others as if he is prior to the primary cause that he perceives. In other words, everything is small for him.

And let us say Amen!

What do you think about the claim that for the products of a cause to have free choice, it is reasonable to assume that the first mover also has free choice?
Anyway, as soon as you ask again about the mechanical structure of the first cause, you will surely need the sufficient reason argument as you mentioned in the notebook. But you talked less about its origin there. What is the sufficient reason to assume that the principle of sufficient reason is sufficiently true.

I don't know the answer to that. We also have legs even though he doesn't. I'm not sure how convincing this argument is.

Agreed, but it is defined as much as possible so it is a bit different.
Anyway, what is the sufficient reason to accept the principle of sufficient reason that you mentioned??

The principle of sufficient taste

Pshita,

A. “First Cause” is not an internal attribute of God but an action term (a causal relationship between Him and things in creation).

B. The concept “First Cause” is not the first cause itself but *that through which we perceive* it (or the actual relationship that exists between it and its creation). The first cause itself is outside perception, while the concept through which it is perceived is in the perceiving person.

OU,

Perhaps you are entering Aristotle's regression problem here. If a reason is needed for every claim, then the number of claims that need to be reasoned will never end and we will never know anything. So it is possible that the principle of sufficient reason is one of the clear or understandable or self-evident claims that any attempt to reason will be futile – relying on axioms with a lesser level of certainty. Modern epistemologists call the theory that our knowledge structure consists of axioms that do not themselves require explanation Foundationalism.

Still, there are philosophers who have provided reasons for the principle of sufficient reason. It may be seen as an inference to the best explanation. We see that for every contingent thing in the universe, an explanation is eventually found. So the question is whether this happens every time by chance or whether the best explanation for the phenomenon is a general metaphysical principle. A contemporary Catholic philosopher named Alexander Pruss presented a long list of absurdities that will be accepted by those who refuse to admit it.

Copenhagen, do you have a link to Prous's statement?

There are several here from 2.2 (Why should we believe the PSR?) to at least 2.2.5 (and up).

http://alexanderpruss.com/papers/LCA.html

Back when I had access to ebooks I read more about it in his book
The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment

And also in one or two other journal articles that I can't remember now.

thanks

Konfahgen, welcome to the reply and the reply.
A. And what's the point? If you grasp the concept of the causal relationship between God and the world, it means you are like God. Because only God can grasp His relationship to the world.
B. First cause is a human concept for all intents and purposes, every child can understand it. And therefore it is within the other normal perceptions of humans. It has no special properties. Many human concepts lose their meaning when they come to apply them to reality.

P.S.
The principle of sufficient reason is a principle that has caused humans to be stuck in primitive perceptions for thousands of years. Haven't we had enough already?

Copenhagen, thank you very much. What do you think about the words of the Mera Datara that connect our beliefs with a mental-conscious sense? It sounds like you manage to evade this by taking an approach of basic, primary beliefs that cannot and should not be further substantiated, but the question arises whether there is a connection between them and the truth external to us, which does not seem likely.
B. What do you think about replacing the principle of sufficient reason with the principle of causality (which often in everyday life there is no difference between the two and therefore is enough for us). And in particular that we apply the principle of causality only to physical things around us. These two assumptions sound very reasonable, even more so than the principle of sufficient reason, and their combination undermines Rav Michai's evidence for God as a deism/theism, as I have shown here.

Peshitta,

A. The Rambam dealt with this question in his discussion of the legitimacy of action terms (e.g., Chapter 10, Part 1). In short, it is not the determination of the reality of a thing as the clarification of its essence and essence. When we talk about the dependence of things in the world on God, we do not undertake to say anything about the *essence* of God, but only judge that there is a relationship between the existence of the dependent thing and the thing on which it depends. For example, when you say that the gravitational force exerted by the sun on the earth causes it to accelerate centrifugally, you do not undertake to say anything about the nature of the sun. It is possible that you know nothing about the essence of the sun except for the fact that the rotational motion of the earth depends on it.

B. I did not understand the argument. Also the sentence you raised: “Many human concepts lose their meaning when they are applied to reality” It is a human sentence for all intents and purposes, and has no special feature, and if our concepts lose their meaning when we come to apply them to reality, then so does this sentence.

PS. On the contrary. The principle is the basis of the motivation that drives all science.

OU,

There is no reason. I did not manage to see the connection of the מרא דאטרא to the sense of my conscious mind and what it means, so it is not clear to me what I am ‘managing’ to evade. In my humble opinion, when talking about epistemology (and regardless of the principle of sufficient reason or cosmological evidence) it seems that we must claim that there are basic beliefs that do not rely on other beliefs and do not require such support. Otherwise we will reach a kind of coherentism (or infinite regression), and coherentism is not coherent with the concept of truth.

B. My tendency is indeed to believe that the principle of causality is the ontological basis for the various formulations of the principle of sufficient reason. Traditionally, the principle of sufficient reason attributed to Leibniz deals only with contingent *claims* that require *explanation* (and not with concrete *objects* with contingent characteristics that require *reason*). However, it seems to me that for us, ontology precedes logic (except for God, who is identical to his thought, where there is identity) and therefore we believe in the various formulations of the principle of sufficient reason only because we have a prior and more fundamental belief in the principle of causality. However, the principle of causality is not reduced to physical objects and it is not justified to reduce it in this way ad hoc just to avoid the conclusion of the cosmological view. For example, when we talk about non-physical free will, we ask what is the reason for choosing A and not B. And we expect as a self-evident assumption that there will be a reason for this (the reasons or motivations for choosing A plus the voter's ability to choose so).

In addition, I will refer you to the link I included above in response to the question of the 'Mara Datra' to get another perspective on the problematic nature of reducing the principle to physical objects.

A. The cognitive sense from the school of Marnan Sar-e-Ater Shalit is one of his greatest innovations in the field of epistemology and I know of several books written about it. This sense manages to connect empirical claims with inductive ~ scientific claims. For example, when we conduct an experiment of Newton's second law and group the experimental data to the number of points on the graph, we "observe" the general law of nature through them in order to extrapolate, etc.
Therefore, I ask, how are these beliefs that talk about the external world actually true? You would say that the assumption that what we think or see really exists in external reality is a basic belief, but why assume, for example, that Ockham's razor is a basic belief, or the belief in sufficient reason that every object in the world has distilled sufficient reason? I think that the very creation of this belief in us requires a factor that will connect the external world to us.

B. I didn't fully understand your words in the phrase “the ontological basis” or in the phrase later “that for us ontology precedes logic”. I assume you meant that it only talks about entities and not just about any contingent claim like Leibniz.

Your claim later on that the principle of causality is extremely basic and not just for physical objects like free will is not clear to me because free choice is not a causal process but has a purposive purpose. But I assume you meant to argue that the principle of causality for you is the same as the principle of sufficient reason.

Also, I would love to hear what you think about the unruly randomness that prevails in quantum mechanics that shatters our view of the creation of particles without a cause, and the behavior of bodies.

Thank you very much, I would love to read it

OU,

You ask: “How are these beliefs that speak of the external world actually true”? But in a similar way one could ask how are mathematics and the laws of logic like that? They not only require the actual external world, but are necessarily valid in every possible world. How is our perception able to know such things?
Just as it is possible to grasp the truth of these, there is no fundamental reason why it would not be possible to grasp sentences that deal with metaphysical necessity (the principle of causality/sufficient reason).

As for a connecting factor, the normal activity of the human cognitive system is something created by such connecting factors between the mind and external reality. Even basic arts are created due to the past and present activity of such connecting factors, and not only are the arts derived.

B. True. The intention was not to deny the validity of one formulation or another of the Leibniz-style principle of sufficient reason, but only to argue that what is more ancient in our system of knowledge is the concept of a principle of causality that characterizes objects in reality.

The fact that the principle is not reducible to physical objects is not based only on the example of free will but on any conceivable state of affairs. If the principle of causality is not valid outside of physical objects, then outside the space-time being of our universe after the Big Bang there is no reason why an infinite number of universes could have been created out of nothing, and then we would have paradoxes like Boltzmann's brain (if you've heard of it). The simple fact that we do not imagine situations of this kind (except only in retrospect to avoid the conclusion of the cosmological view or the fine-tuning of the universe and the like) indicates that human thought has difficulty in really denying the universality of the principle of causality.

Free will does not operate in a vacuum. There would be no free choice of X unless the chooser was the kind of creature for whom a certain way in which X was conceived in his mind was capable of motivating him to act, and since we ask why someone chose X and expect an answer in terms of human motivation for action, we can see that we are applying the principle of causality even when it comes to free will.

Sometimes physicists use somewhat misleading images to illustrate certain oddities that exist in the physical world, but there is no such thing as creating particles out of nothing for no reason. Quantum mechanics talks at most about particles created from the energy of the quantum vacuum (and energy is not “nothing”) but not from nothingness.

Indeterminism does not touch on the principle of causality. Human free choice is also not deterministic. The fact that a person could have chosen Y instead of X does not undermine the fact that there is a reason why X was chosen. Similarly, the fact that the same quantum system could have produced a different result does not undermine the fact that there is a reason why the particular result was produced – and it is the quantum system in question that is inherently capable of producing this result.

Kekopenhagen, I'm not following you anymore, but a comment on the last paragraph of your statement. Indeterminism certainly touches on the principle of causality. In a quantum state where there is a collapse to one of several possible states, the assumption is that there is no reason that caused this. If there was a reason, there would be no other possibilities. It is true that at a deeper level, the quantum structure of the universe itself can be seen as a kind of reason, but this is not a reason for the particular outcome, but for the very quantum mechanism that chooses one outcome from several possible ones.

Copenhagen Thank you very much,
A. Why do you think that mathematics is necessarily valid in every possible world? It is impossible to imagine that there is a world where when you put a match next to a match there will be a “demon” who will add a third match for you. Then you assume in that world that 1+1=3 and this is also a logical necessity in all worlds….
On the other hand, it is understandable to assume that the laws of logic will be valid in every conceivable world because from its perspective, something that is a logical contradiction has no meaning and is simply undefined. But no more than that..
Therefore, I do not think that the claim that she raised that we are able to perceive things in all worlds should be accepted.
In any case, it sounds like the connecting factor from your perspective is not the intellectual evidence of Mara Datra, so if you are talking about a connecting factor of the God type then by its very definition as omniscient your words are understandable.
But if you meant a connecting factor of the natural type ~style~ evolutionary. So even if evolution has the power to create, to a certain extent, our understanding of external reality, it has no possibility of providing us with information regarding various metaphysical assumptions when everything operates as a derivative of the laws of nature.

B. Thank you very much. The words of the rabbi below completed the question. I will focus on the part where you raised the skeptical question that your friend Alexander Prass often raises regarding the creation of things from nothing, but this feels strange to me. After all, even someone who does not accept the principle of causality does not necessarily accept creation from nothing, but on the contrary, he claims that the world is simply ancient. I believe that you will argue that it is possible to imagine a certain factor outside of space that will cause changes in our space-time and will appear to us as creation from nothing. But it is not really about creation from nothing.
In any case, I agree with the skeptical claims that you raise. But this sounds too dangerous to me and even untrue, because I am not sure that after you raise these claims, you are not cutting down the branch you are on.
Don't you think they are too difficult questions? If according to the method of those who deny the principle of sufficient reason, we lose our hands and feet in the ability to think something about the world around us, it is not certain that even those who accept the principle of sufficient reason will be free from all this. For example, finally, perhaps we are in one of those possible worlds that your group likes to give against those who deny sufficient reason, but we are just not aware of it because it is the nature of our current world that we will not be aware of our mistakes. And to this you add the problem that there is almost only one honest and correct world, but there are endless distorted worlds…

To the Rabbi,

Isn't it agreed that the quantum system caused the result? Without it, there would have been no collapse at all.

Just because there were other possibilities does not mean that there was no cause. The fact that an event was caused indeterministically does not mean that it was not *caused*. It was caused, just not in a way that the cause forced the result.

Although on the surface this may seem to be a problem with the principle of sufficient reason, it is not with the principle of causality. For the principle of causality requires only a cause that is inherently capable of bringing about the contingent result (and this does exist: the quantum system is defined so that it is capable of bringing about several possible states).

However, in my opinion, there is also no problem with the principle of sufficient reason. Every contingent claim (except perhaps certain borderline claims) has an explanation. The claim that the quantum system caused one state and not others has an explanation in terms of the capabilities inherent in the nature of the system. What is unexplained is the question of why it “caused one state *instead* of the other states.” However, it seems that the “rather than” sentence does not constitute a claim about reality.

This is a question of definition, of course. You could say that the result of a 5 in a die roll has a cause: the fact that the die was rolled and that it is fair.
But this is not a cause in the sense of ”sufficiency”, and analytic philosophers have already insisted that a cause must be a sufficient condition for the causer (and for some: necessary and sufficient). A necessary condition that is not sufficient cannot be considered a cause (unless you adopt for the sake of the discussion a different definition of causality than is generally accepted).
[I am of course assuming, for the sake of the example, that the result of the die roll is random (which is not really true).]

OU,

The demon that puts down another match is not an example of 1+1 but of 1+1+1. The fact that an impossible world is undefined is tantamount to the claim that there is no such world (there is no such thing as a ‘world’ that does not meet the definition of a ‘world’), meaning that the laws of logic are binding in all possible worlds and we certainly grasp this simple fact. I did not commit to who or what the nature of the connecting factor is (a long discussion in itself), but only to the fact that a connecting factor exists.

To the Rabbi,

It seems to me that the position that a cause must be a sufficient condition for a cause is equivalent to the claim that there is no such thing as indeterministic causality (the desired assumption) and I have no strong reason to think that it is true.

Copenhagen, thank you very much
A. I understand your claim that for us there is no meaning to the meaning of 1+1=3, but at least you agree that if you were in another world where there was a hidden demon, you would think that you would never understand that 1+1=2?
So this is not really a claim about every possible world like a meaningless contradiction because here there is a certain meaning. But just our human limitation.

What do you think about B?

Copenhagen, exactly like that. And since the accepted definition of causality is as I said (a sufficient condition), it is impossible to declare that indeterminism does not concern causality. Of course, if you define causality differently, it can be reconciled with indeterminism, but that too is a tautology.

OU,
There is no reason for that.

Not necessarily. In such a world I would think because of the principle of sufficient reason that there is some hidden variable (a demon or whatever) that causes the appearance of an additional match each time (and not that 1 + 1 equals 3).

Are you raising the possibility of denying the principle of causality and at the same time creation from nothing (i.e. without a creator)? This seems problematic to me from the beginning. If the principle of causality does not require why things from nothing should not appear just like that without a reason. After all, we are talking about a completely irrational universe and there is nothing in all of existence, any object or principle, that prevents such things from happening or that makes such events improbable.

The reason that Prouss mentions the possibility that a factor outside space-time would cause objects to appear from nothing is to answer the skeptic who tries to reject the principle of causality on the one hand while arguing that the principle regarding events within space-time should be adopted on the other. All these matters require a great deal of elaboration and it would be difficult for me to go into them here.

In any case, even a contingent, ancient world requires a cause, no less than a non-ancient world. The reasoning for this can be seen, if you wish, in a video I previously released on YouTube with a certain formulation of the cosmological view, and it can also be shown if we adopt another formulation or formulations (again, the matter requires an elaboration that is out of place here. I will try to write about it perhaps in the future).

To the Rabbi,

This is indeed an accepted definition among a certain majority in a certain limited community (analytic philosophers – if they can be classified as a community at all) although there are quite a few figures for whom it is not: for example, neither Plantinga nor Prus nor Linda Zagzebski. And yet it seems that among most people who are accustomed to imposing some kind of responsibility on a person for their actions, a different definition is implicitly or explicitly assumed. Was someone angry with me because he thought I overtook him in line? If he believed that I did not have libertarian free will, it would be difficult for him to justify his anger.

Beyond that, the main point was to say that there is at least a superficial difference between the statement “A caused B” and “A forced B” and it would be a surprising innovation if someone were to succeed in presenting such an analysis that shows that the first sentence is actually equivalent to the second.

Copenhagen, thanks, but I still don't understand.
There is a huge difference between a change that can occur without a reason and the creation of a new thing from nothing! Nothing new comes out of nothing. On the other hand, a change within being is possible. For example, instead of a body moving to the right, it can suddenly move to the left. We see the same thing in quantum mechanics.

The thing is that Prouss's words also attack him. Because it is possible that there really is some kind of supernatural factor (let's call it a demon), outside of space-time that really has a certain reason behind it, and so on up to a primary initial cause and it causes us strange events within space-time. Events that occurred because of a very clear reason - the demon.
How does belief in that primary cause - God exactly solve this??
It is also possible that there are infinite Shin-Daldim who are necessary beings, and therefore this skepticism of his attacks him as well.

Okay, thank you very much. Regarding the other things, I don't really have much to say.